My sister is finally giving in and moving on from her '97 Acura RL. The broken ABS, AC, cracked windshield, and questionable suspension makes it uncomfortable at best and hazardous at worst. She's sold on a Fit, but I'd like to gently nudge her toward some other options so she can avoid the Honda tax (although, I think the Fit is pretty damn good at what it does).
Must haves:
Less than or equal to 10K (but, really, closer to 8)
Good gas milage (35+ would be ideal)
Small and maneuverable in city traffic (DC sucks)
Automatic (Who wants to drive stick in DC traffic? Oh, right...me. Plus, she just won't learn. Whatever.)
Cheap to own (obviously probably, but still)
Nice to haves:
Hatchback/wagon (because...I don't know why, but she wants one)
Nav/GPS (seriously, I've never seen anyone get lost like her)
BlueTooth (for general white girl stuff)
Are Priuses in this range yet? mazda3? Some kind of Subaru? I dunno. My criteria for car shopping for myself has always been having 4 wheels and relative simplicity of repairs, so I'm pretty useless at shopping for vehicles that people with real jobs and money and stuff buy.
when i was looking in that range. i looked at the yaris and mazda2. both fit all your specs.
mndsm
MegaDork
7/6/15 8:28 p.m.
You can easily get a 3 in that range.
Nissan Versa
Ford Fiesta
Everything made has bluetooth since around '07 so, bonus her.
Both sip fuel like misers. I had a rental Versa for a week and it was faster than I expected but you could still grow a beard trying to get to 100mph. It was generally a pleasant experience.
A decent Android smartphone is better than any built-in nav and she is already paying for it more than likely. Don't bother paying extra for in-car. Never drove a Fiesta but it's waaaay better looking than the Nissan.
the Fit fits all your needs … accept maybe the milage … Mom has a '12 base model … and if she does the driving (I do 99% of her driving for her now) she would get ~ 28 mpg … I can stretch it (nearly hypermiling) and can keep it in the 34 - 35 range … I'm not really impressed with the Honda brain that controls the shift points
and your Sis will be doing lots of city driving, for us it's mostly (nearly exclusively) rural … so we should be getting better milage than a mostly city driven vehicle
good luck with the search
Pontiac Vibe should be cheaper than the same Toyota Matrix.
One tough point will be to find factory equipped Bluetooth in older economy cars. You may have to put in an aftermarket radio to gain this feature.
Same goes for built in navigation but $100 will get you a great Garmin.
Prius can easily deliver all that you want.
Prius. Prius wins over all others sitting in traffic and getting good gas mileage.
